The Florida Senate and Secretary of State Cord Byrd last week urged a panel of federal judges to reject a lawsuit alleging that part of a 2022 Senate redistricting plan is unconstitutional because two Tampa Bay-area districts were racially gerrymandered.
Attorneys for Senate President Ben Albritton, R-Wauchula, and Byrd filed motions for summary judgment that, if approved, would end the case.
The lawsuit, filed in April on behalf of five residents of Tampa and St. Petersburg, focuses on Senate District 16 and Senate District 18. Sen. Darryl Rouson, a Black Democrat from St. Petersburg, represents District 16, which crosses Tampa Bay to include parts of Pinellas and Hillsborough counties. White Republican Nick DiCeglie of Indian Rocks Beach represents District 18, which is made up of part of Pinellas County.
The lawsuit alleges that the Legislature’s plan to connect Black populations in the two counties in District 16 “sacrificed genuine communities of interest” and that “racial gerrymandering unjustifiably packed Black voters into District 16, stripping them from adjacent District 18 and reducing their influence there.” It contends the plan violated equal-protection rights.
But the motions filed last week disputed the arguments, with Byrd’s attorneys writing that lawmakers have created bay-crossing districts similar to the current District 16 since at least 1992. Byrd’s motion also suggested that the plaintiffs want to redraw the map in a way that would add a Democratic district.
“The alternative maps they offer aren’t meaningfully better when it comes to BVAP (Black voting age population), compactness or adherence to political and geographic boundaries,” Byrd’s motion said, referring to criteria used in redistricting. “The one meaningful difference is this: Plaintiffs’ alternatives create an extra Democratic seat. That difference can’t upend the state’s choices.”
Lawmakers gave final approval to the redistricting plan in February 2022, and the districts were used in the 2022 elections. Rouson received 63.9 percent of the vote in District 16, while DiCeglie received 56.9 percent in District 18. Neither seat was on the 2024 ballot.
At least part of the way the districts were drawn is tied to a 2010 “Fair Districts” state constitutional amendment that set standards for redistricting. Part of the amendment said new maps cannot “diminish” the ability of racial minorities “to elect representatives of their choice.”
But the lawsuit alleges that lawmakers did not “narrowly tailor” its use of race to comply with the state constitutional requirement. As a result, it alleges that the plan violated federal equal-protection rights.
“The state drew these districts purportedly to avoid diminishing Black voters’ ability to elect representatives of their choice in District 16, but the state unnecessarily used race to disregard traditional, race-neutral redistricting considerations,” the lawsuit said. “And far from advancing representation, the enacted districts dilute Black voters’ power. The state could have drawn these districts to both avoid the diminishment of Black voting power and respect traditional redistricting criteria. Instead, the state engaged in racial gerrymandering that unconstitutionally abridges plaintiffs’ rights to the equal protection of the laws.”
But the Senate motion last week said race was “considered only to the extent required by law and as one of multiple factors influencing District 16’s configuration.”
“The undisputed material facts here establish that the Florida Senate permissibly considered race as required by the Florida Constitution, but that race did not predominate over non-racial factors such as compactness, contiguity, population equality, and boundary usage in the development of the enacted plan,” the Senate’s lawyers wrote.
Unlike typical lawsuits, three-judge panels hear redistricting cases. The case has been assigned to Andrew Brasher, a judge on the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of appeals, and Charlene Edwards Honeywell and Thomas Barber, judges in the federal Middle District of Florida.
Meanwhile, a separate lawsuit is pending in federal court in Miami challenging some state House districts. Also, the Florida Supreme Court is considering a challenge to a congressional redistricting plan, with that case focused on a North Florida district that was overhauled.
